Шахматы
Chess
C1 · Advanced · non-fiction · 10 scenes · Premium story
An advanced documentary reader on chess in Russia. The game arrived from Persia along the Volga before it reached most of Europe, and the Russian names of the pieces still prove it: the vizier never became a queen, and the chariot became a boat. Three centuries of church bans that nobody obeyed, a state that decided in the 1920s to fund a game costing nothing but a board and a chair, Reykjavik in 1972 — and then a machine that could not be beaten.
Characters
- Mikhail Botvinnik (Михаил Ботвинник) — The first Soviet world champion
- Boris Spassky (Борис Спасский) — World champion, 1969–1972
- Anatoly Karpov (Анатолий Карпов) — World champion, 1975–1985
- Garry Kasparov (Гарри Каспаров) — World champion, 1985–2000
Vocabulary from this story
- шахматы — chess
- доска — board
- фигура — piece
- пешка — pawn
- ферзь — queen (chess)
- ладья — rook
- король — king
- ход — move
- партия — game
- ничья — draw
- восток — the east
- путь — route